For the show's second episode, "Nashville" scored a 5.0 rating, down from 6.8 a week ago. Under the Nielsen rating system, 1 point equals 1 percent of all households with a television. A rating of 5.0, therefore, means that 5 percent of households were tuned to "Nashville."

"You want to see the audience grow," said Billy Pittard, department chair for Electronic Media Communication at Middle Tennessee State University. "I’m sure they are not going to go into full on panic mode. ... They'll look at the first few episodes and they will definitely be monitoring the vital signs to see what they are going to do."

Pittard added that because a portion of viewers, including himself, shift their viewing time with DVRs, ratings on this week's episode could improve.

"It probably isn't going to bring it back from its 20 percent drop, but there will be some increasing viewership just because of DVRs," he said, adding that personally, he was very impressed with the show and not just because of his affinity toward Nashville. "I thought the cast was amazing. The script, it hooked me and I don’t normally go for hour dramas."

"Nashville" once again beat NBC's new "Chicago Fire," which drew a 4.7 rating, and was again beat by CBS' "CSI," which drew a 7.3.

The 'share' for "Nashville" came in at 9 percent, meaning 9 percent of all in-use televisions were tuned to the program, down from 12 percent a week ago.

Jamie McGee covers tourism, entertainment and technology.

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